DADU: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday visited the venue of what he described as the “historic public meeting” to be held on Saturday near Dadu’s New Sabzi Mandi along the Dadu-Larkana section of the Indus Highway on Saturday. Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal-Bhutto Zardari and many other senior party leaders will be speaking at the public meeting, according to PPP sources.

In his visit to the venue, Mr Shah was accompanying MNA Rafiq Ahmed Jamali, MPAs Dr Sajeela Leghari and Kalsoom Chandio, Waqar Mehdi and several other senior party colleagues, besides Sindh PPP president Nisar Ahmed Khuhro.

The PPP has organised the public meeting a few weeks after an impressive show staged by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) in the town. PTI chairman Imran Khan, former CM Liaquat Jatoi and various other PTI leaders had addressed that rally and claimed that the PPP had lost much of its vote bank in this part of Sindh.

CM Shah, speaking to local reporters while reviewing the arrangements for PPP’s Saturday show, said that it would be a historic political event in this district. “People are coming [to attend the public meeting] on their own ... we are just facilitating their travel and attendance,” he said.

He rejected PTI leaders’ claim about a decline in PPP’s vote bank or popularity, and said that Imran Khan was novice in politics. He was of the view that PTI’s all political moves were failing. “Every move by Imran Khan has finally failed,” he observed, and criticised the PTI chief for disrespecting the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) by not appearing before it on call up notices. The ECP had already given its decision against him, said Mr Shah.Answering a question about the election campaign run by Maryam Nawaz for her mother, Kulsoom Nawaz, for the NA-120 Lahore by-election, the CM said she [Maryam] should restrict the campaign to electioneering and refrain from targeting courts and other state institutions unnecessarily.

Commenting on the presence of Burmese among illegal immigrants in Sindh and any possible action against them in the wake of the repeated massacres of Muslims in Myanmar, the chief minister expressed solidarity with the aggrieved Muslim (Rohingya) community in that country and vowed to extend every possible assistance to them on behalf of the provincial government. He said the Sindh government had nothing to do with the illegal immigrants from any country settled in this province. He said any action against them would be taken as per the relevant laws.

He said that it was for the Ummah to take a bold decision and step against the tyranny let loose against Rohingyas in Myanmar.

In reply to a question about controversial results of the recent census, CM Shah said that Sindh had registered its reservations with the authorities concerned and sought certain census documents from the federal government. However, he said, a response was still awaited.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2017